Thursday, 7 February 2008

My Makeup Stash Organised

For makeup addicts like me, there comes a point when our makeup stashes just grow to such overwhelming proportions that a good organiser is necessary to help us manage all of it and ensure that the countless products in our stash get rotated regularly in usage before they all expire into a sadly under-utilised mess. This is especially true for messy people like me who have a bad habit of leaving things lying around such that my table tops at home and in the office are often covered in a mountain of randomly assorted lipglosses and other makeup paraphernalia.

The most useful organiser that I've found to date is still this 6-drawer white plastic organiser from Muji. I bought my first one while I was living in Tokyo and recently, I've had to buy a second one as my makeup collection had grown again (unsurprisingly!) since I left Tokyo. Fortunately, I was able to find it at the Muji store in Paragon shopping centre in the heart of my city. It retails for 2940yen in Japan and S$49 in Singapore.

What I like about it is that the depth and width of the individual drawers, which each come with 3 separators, are just right for storing makeup products by brand or function and you never have to dig too deep to find what you need. Most palettes fit nicely inside these drawers. So, as can be seen from the pics, I have separate compartments for palettes from Lunasol, Awake, Jill Stuart, Majolica Majorca, Tarte, Chanel and MAC as well as a couple of compartments devoted to my MAC MSFs and Bobbi Brown Shimmerbricks. The organiser makes it very easy to find what I want at a glance and retrieve it quickly.

This green plastic case is the first makeup organiser that I got when I was starting to build up my collection. It's useful if you're just starting your makeup collection but it quickly became grossly inadequate, at the rate that I was accumulating stuff! Now, I use it to store random bits and bobs, like my Tarte Cheek Stains which are all in individual ziploc baggies because they 'sweat' and leak, especially in Singapore's hot and humid weather.

wow you have a cool website, i love Japanese cosmetics hehe... if you dont mind me linking your website so i can check up on the new updates of Japanese brand's! thanks a lot! oh and happy luner new year =)

I love Muji storages. I've got the 3 drawer white plastic compartment, 2 clear plastic boxes and a 3 tier clear drawer. Sll to store my makeup stash that I'm slowing building up! :) I think what I love best about the white plastic compartments is that you can remove the 'separators' so you can fit all kinds of size of makeup! ;)

One more question, Iris - how do you decide what cosmetics to wear each day? Do you have a system? Because I have so much stuff and frequently forget about a lot of it. I've been trying to find a way to get some use out of each item.

That's exactly the same organiser as the ones I have! But the price is double what I paid for it in Singapore, which is already a few bucks more than the price in Japan. I'm not sure if it's worth 35 pounds, you know?

I don't really have a system of deciding what to wear every day but I try to rotate among all the brands that I own regularly so that I get to use most of what I buy. But sometimes I do buy stuff and end up not using it for months. It's a bit disgraceful! But I just can't help being tempted by all the gorgeous new makeup that's being released every season.

There's no way to prevent the Tarte cheek stains from sweating in Singapore's weather. The best one can do is to keep it in a cool and dry place away from sunlight. I keep mine in a ziploc baggie so that it is easy to clean and maintain without the risk of having it leak all over my other makeup products.

Hi Grayburn! Glad to hear you're enjoying the blog! I'm actually super messy as well, which is why the organiser comes in very handy.